


without the sun (i fall silent)

by Xenon912



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Ahsoka Trains Anakin, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - Order 66, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gift Exchange, Gift Fic, Jedi Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Culture, Jedi Culture Respected, Lesbian Ahsoka Tano, Lightsabers, Mandalore, Mandalorians because they're my brand, Mando'a, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Multi, Naboo - Freeform, Phoenix Nest Summer Exchange, Phoenix Nest Summer Exchange 2020, Secret Relationship, Shili, Tatooine, Unrequited Love, lineage feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenon912/pseuds/Xenon912
Summary: “Ahsoka,” Qui-Gon whispers. “Promise...promise me you will train the boy.”“Yes, Master.”“He is...the Chosen One.” The grip on her arm loosens and his hand falls back against his chest. “He will bring balance.”Alone, with Qui-Gon’s body and lightsaber, she returns to the royal hangar to face her new charge.Anakin Skywalker, the boy from Tatooine.AU where Obi-Wan's generation is swapped with Ahsoka's. Everything is better because Ahsoka doesn't suffer fools, especially not ones named Sheev Palpatine.
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano & Clone Troopers, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Barriss Offee/Ahsoka Tano, Bo-Katan Kryze/Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 18
Kudos: 245
Collections: Phoenix Nest Summer Exchange 2020





	without the sun (i fall silent)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tanoposting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanoposting/gifts).



> This was going to be a one-shot and then I got wildly carried away SO it's a two-shot now! CW for drunkenness.

It begins like this: Under the palace in Theed, her master clutching her arm so hard it hurts, though not as much as the knowledge that the wound in his gut is fatal.

“Ahsoka,” Qui-Gon whispers. “Promise...promise me you will train the boy.”

“Yes, Master.”

“He is...the Chosen One.” The grip on her arm loosens and his hand falls back against his chest. “He will bring balance.”

Alone, with Qui-Gon’s body and lightsaber, she returns to the royal hangar to face her new charge.

Anakin Skywalker, the boy from Tatooine.

-0-0-0-

“This is highly irregular,” Master Windu rumbles, and fear fills her veins with ice water, freezes her in her pose, her back appropriately straight, her robes straightened and freshly-pressed.

“However,” Master Dume adds, and shoots his former Master a long look, “we have decided we will allow the boy to join the Order, in honor of Master Jinn’s sacrifice. He will be yours to train... _after_ he has completed a full year as an Initiate.”

She’s so relieved she almost staggers, and barely pulls herself together enough to bow. “Thank you, Masters.”

Master Dume gives a small, kind smile. “Get some rest, Knight Tano,” he orders gently. “Grieve your master in peace. Anakin Skywalker will be safe as part of Bear Clan.”

_Bear Clan? Yoda doesn’t know what’s coming for him._

-0-0-0-

She must be a complete and absolute idiot, because it’s half-past four in the morning and she is standing outside Barriss Offee’s quarters while on a bender that might have killed a full-grown Gundark.

Despite the accursed hour, Barriss still answers her door, and looks her over with the polite surprise of a Jedi who is internally thinking, _what in seven Corellian Hells is going on here?_

“Ahsoka,” she says, and just...stares, long enough that Ahsoka starts to worry she looks even crazier than she thinks she does. “Get...get in here.”

Barriss’s quarters are spotless, save for her cloak dropped in a pile on the couch. “Let me,” Barris murmurs, pulling Ahsoka’s cloak off and dropping it beside her own. “Ugh, what have you been drinking? It smells terrible.”

“It’s Mandalorian,” Ahsoka tells her.

“Figured,” she mutters. “I’ll make you some tea. If any of the Masters see you like this, you’re going to get sent to the Soul Healers.”

“Soul Healers?” Ahsoka echoes. “I don’t need a Soul Healer.”

“Then why are you six parsecs into your cups?”

_Kriff._ “Maybe I like the taste.”

Barriss glares. “Okay, okay,” Ahsoka acquiesces. “I had a nightmare.”

More glaring. “Several nightmares.”

At last, she softens, and disappears around the corner into her kitchenette. Ahsoka closes her eyes to block out the nauseating tilt of her vision and focuses blearily on the sound of Barriss putting the kettle on.

“Drinking,” Barriss says at last, “is not the correct way to deal with grief, Ahsoka.”

“I know.”

“You’re hurting yourself.”

“I know.”

Silence. “Qui-Gon would be furious with you.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Fine. He’d be heartbroken.”

“It doesn’t matter how he’d feel,” Ahsoka snaps. “He’s dead.”

The kettle screams for a heartbeat, but Barriss is already taking it off the stove. She returns a few minutes later, pressing the warm mug into her hands. Ahsoka breathes it in and almost drops the mug in her shock. “Cassius tea?” Her mind conjures up a flash of red hair, a scorched breastplate, and Ahsoka shakes her head to clear it.

Barriss shrugs. “You left some here last time you visited. I thought...Mandalorian alcohol, Mandalorian tea. Is that…?” She trails off awkwardly.

“Thank you,” Ahsoka mumbles, and takes a long drink, letting it burn her throat. The caffeine jolts her back into herself. “Ah, Barriss, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Barriss replies, sitting beside her, their knees bumping together. “You’re my friend, Ahsoka. I’m here for you when you need me. Always.”

Ahsoka slumps against her, resting her chin on Barriss’s shoulder. “I’m still not going to a Soul Healer.”

“You’re going if I have to hit you over the head with my lightsaber and drag you there.”

“Ugh.”

-0-0-0-

The first time she sees Anakin again is three months after Qui-Gon’s death, and she’s stunned to find he’s grown nearly two inches.

“Ahsoka!” he yells across the salle, and throws his training saber and helmet onto the floor to sprint across the room and into her arms.

“ _Ani_.” Force, she missed him. He loops his arms around her neck and lets her pick him up, already rambling animatedly about his newest adventures as a member of Bear Clan.

“Master Yoda is teaching me to meditate too,” he was saying. “I thought it was boring, but then I started seeing things when I meditated! The Force is like space, and everyone is a star, and they all shine in different colors!”

She’s always imagined the Force as the plains of Shili, each flower and blade of grass another being, unique and irreplaceable. To her, Anakin is Shili’s sun, the source of all the warmth the Force can offer her. “That’s very good, Ani. You’re progressing quickly.”

Anakin giggles, then yelps, and Yoda’s gimer stick clatters to the ground at her feet. “Throw your equipment on the ground, you will _not_ ,” Yoda chides, making their way towards them. “Run out of your lessons, you will not, or Archive duty, you will have.”

Anakin nurses his smarting calf and injured pride. “Yes, Master Yoda.”

Ahsoka places him back on the ground and kneels. “Forgive me, Master Yoda. I wasn’t sure when your lesson would have ended.”

“Your fault, it is not,” Yoda reassures. “Learn to control himself, young Skywalker must.”

Anakin blushes. “Yes, Master.”

“Return your equipment to the storage rooms, you will, ensuring they are not damaged. Then with Knight Tano, you may leave.”

Anakin’s big-eyed look of remorse disappears into a grin so brilliantly and innocently happy Ahsoka feels her heart hammer unsteadily in her chest. “Yes, Master!” He runs back off.

Yoda sighs. “Too much energy, younglings have,” he says. “Too old for this, I am getting.”

“Don’t blame yourself for not being able to keep up with Anakin,” Ahsoka says mildly. “ _I_ can’t keep up with him, and I’m a Junior Knight.”

Yoda gives a small smile, which disappears just as quickly. “Spoke to me, Knight Offee did,” he states, quietly enough that no one else will hear them. “Concerning, her words were.”

_Kriff._ “It was a lapse in judgement, Master Yoda,” she says carefully. “It won’t happen again.”

“My worry, that is not,” Yoda agrees. “But dead, Qui-Gon is, and let go of him, you must, or needless suffering will you endure.”

“I understand.”

He pats her hand. “An adult you are, Ahsoka, and wise beyond your years. A great Knight, you are, so on your first mission, I am sending you. To Mandalore you will go, to oversee elections.”

“Please don’t send me to Mandalore.”

Yoda chuckles. “My choice, it was not. Requested you specifically, the Mand’alor did. Warn us she did, that turned away all other Jedi would be.”

Ahsoka groans softly. “Bo-Katan…”

“Not unreasonable she is.” Yoda retrieves his cane and folds his hands over it. “A Republic representative, the New Mandalorians have requested. But wary of Jedi, the warrior clans are.”

“Except for me?”

“Hmm. A question for the Mand’alor, that is. Leave tomorrow you will. For now…” He turns to watch Anakin skipping towards them. “Other responsibilities you have. Your padawan, the boy will be. Ignore him, you will not.”

Ahsoka grimaces, the reprove smarting. “I didn’t want to...burden him, Master.”

Yoda hums again, eyeing her critically. “Spare the boy of your own suffering, you do, forgetting he grieves your Master, too.” With that, he retreats, allowing Anakin to take his place.

“Where are we gonna go?” Anakin asks, reaching for her again. He is possibly too old to be carried everywhere, but to Ahsoka he seems frighteningly small, fragile, a sun in a spun glass ball.

“I was thinking I’d take you out to dinner,” she says. “My friend runs the best diner on Coruscant.”

Anakin raises his eyebrows. “Master Windu says Jedi shouldn’t go to diners.”

It takes a lot of self-control not to roll her eyes. “Master Windu is allergic to fun. He wouldn’t know a good time if it came and bit him.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “Don’t tell anyone I said that, though.”

Anakin laughs. “Okay. I won’t tell.”

-0-0-0-

“Master Yoda said you’re going on your first mission as a Knight soon,” Anakin tells her between mouthfuls of Sic-Six-layer cake. “Where are you going?”

“Back to Mandalore,” Ahsoka says, “to oversee elections.”

“Back? To _Mandalore_?” He echoes fretfully. “Mandalorians are dangerous, Ahsoka.”

“Not if you stay on their good side,” Ahsoka replies. “I spent almost a year protecting the Mand’alor with Qui-Gon during their civil war, back when she was still an heiress.” This calms him somewhat, but she’s still troubled by his reaction. “Have you met Mandalorians, Ani?”

“I saw them sometimes in Mon Espa,” Anakin mumbles into his cake. “And there were a couple who worked for Gardulla, I think. I remember their armor.”

Ahsoka can almost hear the soft acid of her former charge. _Bounty hunters will steal anything they can get their dirty hands on. I’d bet my gun hand those_ sha’buire _bending the knee to the Hutts are nothing more than common criminals._

“A real Mandalorian,” she says, feeling a rush of defensiveness that is not hers, “would never serve a Hutt. They are—supposed to be—mortal enemies.”

“Why?”

“Hutts have no honor. A Mandalorian values a leader who does the difficult things themselves, not self-serving slavers who can be turned with enough credits.”

Anakin nods, like he agrees emphatically—which, given his upbringing, he likely does. “Hutts are monsters,” he growls, confirming her suspicions. “They made my mom a slave.”

“Yes,” Ahsoka agrees awkwardly.

Anakin’s face shutters unusually, and his pie is almost gone by the time he speaks again. “I want to go back for her.”

She bites back the instinctive _we can’t_. “Anakin…”

He hunches his shoulders. “Madame Nu says Jedi aren’t supposed to have attachments,” he says, referring, of course, to his _Traditions_ class, which Ahsoka has no fond memories of. “But I love my mom. Is that wrong?”

“Loving someone is never _wrong_ ,” she says. “A Jedi should always love. There is no compassion without love. But _love_ is not the same as _attachment_.”

“So what’s the difference?” he asks, and she can’t answer him.

-0-0-0-

Sundari is a brilliantly new city. It is no longer the ramshackle collection of ruins from Keldabe and half-built apartment complexes she had left a decade ago, but an actual _city_ , with ever-crowded looping speeder lanes, arching bridges and walkways for pedestrians, and a plethora of parks and courtyards. For a people used to nomadism, Mandalorians were excellent city planners.

The Mand’alor’s young but obdurate Protector, Fenn Rau, escorts her through the city. “The Mand’alor awaits you in the Council Chamber,” he tells her as they arrive at the Palace. It is absolutely bristling with guards, Protectors and grey-helmed Nite Owls.

“Let’s hope she hasn’t gotten herself into a brawl,” Ahsoka replies.

Of course, she has. Between Fenn Rau, a Nite Owl with golden armor, and herself, they manage to peel her off Clan Ordo’s patriarch, who retreats while bowing, nursing a wounded pride but understanding now how this young woman claimed the Darksaber at sixteen. Bo-Katan’s nose is broken and gushing blood all over her mourning-grey armor, and there’s still a snarl fixed on her face as Ahsoka and Fenn Rau manhandle her out of the Council Chamber and leave the gold-armored Nite Owl to calm the remaining Clan leaders.

“You certainly haven’t changed,” Ahsoka sighs.

Bo-Katan wipes her face with the back of her glove and grins, bearing bloody teeth. “Did you expect me to?”

_I’d hoped you hadn’t._ “Of course not,” Ahsoka snaps. “You’d have to accept criticism to change.”

“Well, you’re as hypocritical and full of yourself as _I_ remember,” is the biting reply. She tilts her head forward for another wave of blood to gush from her nose, staining the stone tiles of the floor. “Come on, Fenn. I need to get this set before they eat Ursa.”

“The Countess Wren will be fine, my lady,” Rau rumbles as he leads her away.

“And you,” Bo-Katan motions vaguely backwards. “Introduce yourself. Keep your lightsaber away. Ursa won’t like you, but be civil anyway.”

“I’m never civil.”

“Well _figure it out_!”

With a sigh that would have impressed her master, Ahsoka reenters the Council Chamber. In the, perhaps, one minute they’d been outside, it had devolved back into chaos. The Nite Owl with the golden armor—Countess Ursa Wren—had returned to her seat at the right hand to Bo-Katan’s throne, an imposing, duracrete-colored behemoth that Ahsoka can only assume she’d brought with her from whatever miserable planet had led her to develop such an atrocious sense of design. Her eyes are on Ahsoka without Ahsoka needing to get her attention, and she motions with her right hand as if to say, _behold._

“It is _unconscionable_ to allow the False Mandalorians a seat in our government,” a dark-skinned man with black and orange armor exclaims. “Countess—” Ursa’s eyes flick impassively to him, “surely the warriors of House Vizsla will not stand for such a defilement of our government!”

“I can only speak for Clan Wren,” Ursa says. “We will stand by our leader. Her wishes are as our orders.”

“It is one thing to give the New Mandalorians representation in our Assembly,” another clan leader, in black and white armor, butts in. “But it is another matter entirely to promise cabinet positions to them. They will do everything they can to undermine our leader’s wishes.”

“Not to mention our _traditions_!” orange armor says. He looks a bit purple with exertion. “They have already demanded _Republic_ oversight, as if we are savages who can’t hold a fair vote!”

That’s as terrible a time as any to announce herself. “I don’t think it’s because you are all _savages_ , Mandalorian,” she says, amplifying her voice with the Force. The reactions to her Mando’a range from slack-jawed shock to a microscopic eyebrow raise, courtesy of Ursa Wren. “The New Mandalorians want legitimacy. To be known by the rest of the galaxy. Make of that what you will, but the Mand’alor requested me, so I came.”

There are five heartbeats of silence, and the chamber erupts into chaos again.

-0-0-0-

It takes a full two weeks of waking up at dawn and going to bed at unholy hours to figure out a system of government both the martialists and the pacifists can stomach. Despite their shared animosity—which is more of a reciprocated bitterness and resentment than anything—Ahsoka and Bo-Katan work well together, and there are even moments where she forgets they’re supposed to hate each other.

Like now, sharing a bottle of wine with Bo-Katan on her private balcony. Bo-Katan’s bedroom lies past the ajar balcony doors, which gives this all a rather immodest air. Bo-Katan has traded her armor for dark pants and an oversized sweater showing enough of her collarbones to make Ahsoka want to throw herself off the balcony instead of enjoy the wine. The Mand’alor is aware of this, and is clearly enjoying herself, the little fiend. Her face is the picture of neutrality, but her eyes glitter mischievously over the rim of her wineglass, green as a Nubian pasture, possibly the greenest thing on this planet. Ahsoka presses the inside of her wrist to the wrought-iron frame of the table they’re sitting at, letting the cold keep her together.

“I never got a chance to say,” Bo-Katan begins, “but…I’m sorry about Qui-Gon.”

Ahsoka sighs. “Thank you. He went in peace.”

“Weird Jedi phrase,” Bo-Katan chides lightly, “but I’m glad. He struck me as a man who would leave much unfinished business.”

“He did,” Ahsoka says. “But he was calmed by the knowledge he was leaving it in my capable hands.”

Bo-Katan stares, her gaze too-understanding for eyes that so mercifully tended to show only hate. Ahsoka remembers the bloody armor of Adonai Kryze, his gurgling whispers to his disconsolate daughter. _Free our people. Protect your sister._ She had succeeded at the former, at least.

She says, “Stay another day. I want to show you around the city.”

“I can’t,” Ahsoka replies thoughtlessly. “I have to get home to Anakin.”

Bo-Katan places the wineglass down so delicately Ahsoka can tell she almost just crushed it in her fist. “ _Who is Anakin_?”

So Ahsoka tells her. Bo-Katan listens with a face that makes stone look soft. Then she says, "the Jedi do not deserve you."

Ahsoka bristles. " _Will you stop bringing that up_ ," she hisses, but Bo-Katan waves her anger off with a dismissive flick of her hand that could not have been more frighteningly unlike her.

"I'm not talking about that, you self-centered tool," she snarls and stands furiously, her chair legs screeching on the stone. She goes to stand at the railing, and turns and glares, only-briefly too angry to speak.

I'm _the self-centered tool?_ Ahsoka thinks, but stands and follows her. "Stars above, did you _hear_ yourself just now? You crash landed on Tatooine and Qui-Gon, who was so wrapped up in his prophetic banthashit he forgot how to be a halfway decent person—" Ahsoka is tempted to punch her for that, but she could hardly blame Bo-Katan for disliking her master, "then Qui-Gon finds this poor slave kid and _rips_ him from his mother, and drags him to Coruscant so another collection of hardasses can tell him, 'oh, forget your mom, who is all you have ever known your _entire life_. You can't talk about her, you can't go see her, you certainly can't go free her,' and you—" Bo-Katan is bright red now, "you just went with it, you insufferable doormat!"

"Are you finished?" Ahsoka says bluntly.

"No!" Her— _the_ Mandalorian takes a steadying breath. "You are going to Tatooine, you are going to free that boy's mother and you are going to find her somewhere nice and _not_ Hutt-infested to live. By my starlit father, I will secure her an apartment here if I have to, but you are not _leaving her there_ , I do not _care_ what the Council told you." She clutches the balcony railing, panting. "The Order can have you," she finishes, quietly. "But they don't get to make you a monster."

Ahsoka says nothing. She is caught between the usual urge to throw Bo-Katan off the balcony and the unwelcome-yet-returning urge to kiss her. She is silent for so long Bo-Katan gets impatient. "Well?"

"I think," Ahsoka says, "you are looking to give me more reasons to visit."

The look she gets tells her Bo-Katan has disappeared. "Let it not be said," Mandalore the Shadow says, "that I _enjoy_ seeing you, Ahsoka Tano."

She is left alone on the balcony. The cold is infinitely better than what sleep will bring her.

-0-0-0-

Nine months pass in a blur, and suddenly she is sitting on the floor next to Anakin, helping him braid his hair. They have already trimmed the rest of his hair, save for the lock of hair that will become his padawan braid. It is short and spiky and she’s already run her hands through it at least fifty times.

A box of trinkets lays in Anakin’s lap, materials to decorate his braid. “When do I put the beads in?” he asks, carefully holding the divided locks of his braid in one hand so he can reach into his box and reveal a sky-blue bead.

“The next section,” she says. “Here.” She braids another centimeter before taking a length of navy blue string to tie it off, then switches to a twist, slipping beads in the order Anakin hands them to her: white, blue, orange. The last bead slipped over the completed twist, secured by another thread. This bead was made of japor wood, and Shmi Skywalker had carved it for him and gifted it during their first visit to Sundari. They will not see each other often, Ahsoka knows, because the Council does _not_ know what she did and hopefully never will, but to know she is safe—under the protection of the Mand’alor, much as she hates to owe Bo-Katan _anything_ —has put him at ease. He is taking to the life of the Jedi well, and he is happy.

She lets the completed braid rest against his shoulder, and he immediately lifts it up and puts it in front of his face, grinning from ear to ear. “Do you like it, Padawan mine?” she asks.

He looks at her with an adoration that makes her throat close. “I love it.”

-0-0-0-

The years pass too quickly. One moment, they’re fighting pirates on Dallenor; then she’s watching Anakin build his lightsaber. She lets him place it in her hands, feels the familiar weight of it. “This weapon is your life,” she tells him. “That means don’t _lose_ it, Padawan.”

“Yes, Master,” he promises, and then proceeds to become insanely competent with it. It would be a disservice to the rest of the Jedi to downplay her skills with a lightsaber, or lightsabers in her case. But combat comes perfectly naturally to Anakin. It’s as if he was born to fight. 

Which terrifies her.

“Your lightsaber is your last resort,” she reminds him constantly. “It is an important resort, but your hand should not fly to it first or even second. Violence, Padawan, is often more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Yes, Master,” he says, but she’s not sure she’s getting through to him.

The Padawans’ Salle is full today, and Anakin has the floor. Most of the High Council, she notices, are here, along with a dozen other Padawans and….

Chancellor Palpatine. He makes her skin crawl with the way he looks at Anakin, but he is the Chancellor of the Republic, and she is just a Jedi Knight. She is at his mercy, which is horrifying on a molecular level.

Ahsoka tunes out the quiet murmurings of the other Padawans. Anakin is tinkering with the inner workings of a training droid. She’s not sure if he knows she’s here; Master Windu had her sit in on a Council meeting, so they arrived separately. She remains in the shadow of a pillar as he wipes his hands off and closes the droid’s maintenance panel. It stands, and its hologram glitches and shimmers before taking its final form: red skin, black robes, horns…

_Maul._ For a single nauseating moment, she’s in Theed again, desperately clinging to her dying Master, thinking, _please don’t leave me please don’t leave me—_

Anakin salutes the droid and leaps into action, and all other thoughts leave her mind.

Even with her Force-enhanced vision, he’s hard to follow, a swirl of ice blue against the red droid. The droid’s lightsaber meets Anakin’s with such force she feels the buzz in her montrals, instantly triggering a headache.

Master Windu, who has come to stand beside her, murmurs, “ _brilliant._ ”

As quickly as it began, it’s over. Anakin slices the droid in half, and Ahsoka remembers how _easy_ it was, cutting through bone and flesh alike, her nerves afire with fury.

“Anakin,” she says, unconsciously. He looks up at her and smiles, innocent and luminous.

Anakin opens his mouth to say something, but his eyes glance behind her, and he stops. “I see the boy has taken an interest in the lightsaber, Master Windu,” Palpatine says, his voice sweet as anything.

“As always, Chancellor Palpatine, you are a master of understatement,” Windu replies, and gives Ahsoka a glance that speaks of a lifetime of exasperation condensed into four years. “Ahsoka, is that…”

She grinds her teeth. “Anakin’s been asking me questions about my battle with the Sith on Naboo. I assumed it was just...natural curiosity. I had no idea he would...”

“Come, now, my Jedi friends,” Palpatine says. “A boy of his age, altering a training droid in this way, simply to impress his teachers? I would say that is more than unexpected. I would call it... _impressive._ ”

Anakin beams at the overheard praise, and Ahsoka’s stomach turns further. Then his head turns abruptly towards the watching Padawans. She hears only a snippet of their murmurs. “ _Just a slave._ ”

Anakin raises his arm, and a human and a Duros padawan, neither of whom she recognizes, lose their lightsabers. They turn smoothly in the air and ignite, their blades leveled at their throats. “Tell me,” says Anakin quietly. “What emotion are you feeling now?”

Ahsoka vaults the railing and lands behind him in a swirl of robes. “Anakin!”

She feels his shame instantly, and the lightsabers deactivate. “Master, I…”

“Padawans,” she continues, leveling them with a glare that makes them shrink away. “Is that _any_ way to speak of your brother in the Force? All three of you, apologize, _immediately._ ”

Windu and Palpatine’s conversation continues behind her. She distantly follows it. Anakin returns the lightsabers with a lowered head. “You’re right. I do need to control my emotions better. I didn’t mean to frighten you, I’m sorry.”

“We’re sorry too,” the Duros replies quickly. “Don’t...don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah,” the human adds, giving Ahsoka a quick look. “It’s okay.”

The crowd disperses, and Anakin turns back to her, shoulders hunched with shame. “I’m sorry, Master.”

She can only sigh. “It’s alright, Padawan. But you must remember what I told you…”

“I know. I cannot allow my anger to control me. I understand.”

“If you understand, then you must _apply_ it.” Anakin now looks on the verge of tears, so she places her hands on his shoulders and squeezes them reassuringly. “Ani, I know this is difficult. This is what I struggled with the most, as a Padawan. Like you, I came to the Temple late—not as late as you, of course, but I was nearly three. My infancy had taught me to be afraid, and that was all I knew. Those feelings are real, Padawan, but they must be controlled. A Jedi cannot afford to act on their emotions.”

“Yes, Master.” She ruffles his hair, and he gifts her another precious smile, soothed for the moment.

Behind her, Master Windu lands in the center of the salle with a quiet thump. “Go hit the ‘fresher,” she instructs her padawan. “We’ll spend the afternoon in the Archives.”

“The _Archives_?”

“Yes, Padawan. I have not forgotten your latest Galactic Geography marks.”

Anakin wilts hilariously. “As you wish, Master…”

She watches him slump off before turning her head to catch Windu in the corner of her eye. “Master Windu,” she says. “The next time you decide to turn my Padawan over to a non-Jedi, try asking me _first_.”

Windu sighs, deeply and helplessly. “He is the Chancellor of the Republic, Ahsoka.”

“ _He_ is overstepping his boundaries. We may serve the Republic, Master Windu, but that does not mean I will leave my charge in his hands.”

“Your distrust for politicians is noted, Knight Tano, but my hands are tied. Both of ours are.”


End file.
